WARREN MEYER: Obama Thinks The Free Market Killed Neighborhood Diversity. In Fact, It Was the New Deal.
Here is a very telling paragraph from the HUD’s new proposed fair housing rule[:]
Despite the existing obligation to AFFH, in too many communities, the Fair Housing Act has not had the impact it intended — housing choices continue to be constrained through housing discrimination, the operation of housing markets, investment choices by holders of capital, the history and geography of regions, and patterns of development and the built environment.
So, they list “discrimination” as a problem, but then look at the other four items they list as problems. These can all be summarized as “the normal operation of free markets, property rights, and individual choice.”
Oddly missing from this list of causes is what many historians consider to be the #1 cause of lack of neighborhood diversity and ghetto-ization: The Federal Government and the New Deal. New Deal rules essentially forced the concentration of blacks into just a few neighborhoods. The biggest unmixing of races in New York can be seen between 1930 and 1950. Blacks in Brooklyn went from fairly evenly mixed to concentrated in Bed-Stuy, all directly attributable to New Deal rules.